Canadian Olympic Trials-8 Qualify for Team on Day 1
2008-04-02
Katharine Dunn
Brian Johns qualifies for his third Olympics, while newcomers Alexa Komarnycky, Mathieu Bois and Ryan Cochrane earn first Olympic berths
Swimming Canada decided to make it simple for everyone at this years Olympic trials: the winner in each event goes to Beijing. (Well, the winner has to at least make the FINA-B standard, but many of the finalists did that in heats.) It's a strategy designed to get people to race, and so far, it's worked. In the first five events, eight swimmers qualified for the Beijing team, and post-race several of the winners thanked the "e;first-to-the-wall"e; rule for the electricity in the pool and the stands.

The night started out with a battle in the men's 400IM between Waterloo's Keith Beavers and Vancouver's Brian Johns, who pulled ahead of Pointe Claire's Tobias Oriwol after the backstroke leg. Beavers and Johns were both well under the FINA-A standard of 4:18.40. Beavers went 4:16.93 and Johns 4:17.33.

Both Johns and Beavers have been to the Olympics before (Johns to two previous), and both were disappointed with their overseas performances. "e;My first Olympics I was young; my second I was injured. The third time a charm,"e; said Johns. Beavers, a graduate student at the University of Waterloo, said he hopes to make finals in Beijing.

The women's 400 IM came down to the last five metres between Vancouver's Tanya Hunks and Etobicoke's Alexa Komarnycky. Hunks, who pulled ahead of the field in the breaststroke leg, died a bit at the end of the race and was out-touched by Komarnycky, who went 4:42.8. Hunks swam 4:43.12. Both were under the FINA-A standard, and this will be the first Games for both. Komarnycky, 18, looked a little stunned after her race, telling an announcer that she was at a loss for words. Later, she said, "e;I've been training my whole life for this. It went exactly the way I wanted."e;

Hunks, 27, was close to tears after her race. "e;It's been a long time,"e; she said. (She just missed the Athens Games.) "e;I just graduated, and I wasn't going to put in another four years. I've just put so much training into this."e; Hunks will swim the 400 free tomorrow.

The men's 100 breaststroke was a four-man race, with 15 1/100ths of a second separating the winner from 4th place. From the start, the race belonged to Montreal's Mathieu Bois, who went out in 28.76, a quarter of a second ahead of the field and finished first. Mike Brown, who was 5th at the 50, out-touched newly eligible Canadian Paul Kornfeld (who trains with Brown in Calgary) and Scott Dickens, who'd made the FINA-A standard in heats. Dickens placed fourth and missed the team. "e;I knew I had to start fast,"e; said Bois, who was third going into the final. "e;When I saw those guys behind at the turn, I knew I had it."e;

The women's 100 fly was the night's disappointment, as neither of the top two swimmers made the FINA-A time. Montreal's Audrey Lacroix, who won the race by nearly half a second, swam 59.47, just over a tenth over the qualifying time. (She'll still get to go as the FINA-B time was 1:01.43.) The event's Canadian record holder, Mackenzie Downing, swam more than a second off her best time and didn't qualify for the team.

The last (able-bodied) A-final of the night was the most exciting, even though only one swimmer in the race qualified for the Olympic team. In the men's 400 freestyle, Victoria's Ryan Cochrane nearly even split his race; he pulled ahead of Toronto's Andrew Hurd at the 350 and blazed down the final 50, winning by two-and-a-half seconds. Cochrane, who beat the FINA-A standard by two seconds, also smashed Hurd's Canadian record by the same amount. As usual, Cochrane was modest but unsurprised after his race. "e;It's what I wanted,"e; he said of his time. 'I'm hoping to take two or three seconds off this summer."e;

At the end of finals, Swimming Canada CEO Pierre Lafontaine was smiling and energetic as always, but he admitted only to being "e;satisfied"e; with the night's result. "e;We have a long way to go,"e; he said.